"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

November 30, 2007

Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman's opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, "Bush Isn't the Only Decider," is perhaps another of those documents that historians will look at 100 years from now and ask: He got it, others got it -- in fact, everyone seemed to get it -- so why didn't anyone do anything about it?

The "it," as the op-ed's title suggests, concerns the unfettered growth of presidential power. And Ackerman's example -- the deep cause of concern du jour -- is merely the latest: the recently signed Bush-Maliki declaration that guarantees economic and political aid as well as American "security assurances and commitments to the Republic of Iraq to deter foreign aggression."

There's a word for this sort of "agreement," which the White House says should be in final form by mid-summer -- a treaty. You may recall from your outdated high school civics text that the Senate once routinely engaged in the approval or rejection of such a thing; plus a quick check of the U.S. Constitution -- no doubt also referenced somewhere in your text -- will avail formal provisions for such legislative meddlesomeness.

But, in George Bush's carefree world of monarchic pragmatism, all that fuss of Senatorial approval and advice and consent is just so much needless bureaucracy. Hence, as Professor Ackerman notes, "his White House 'czar' on Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute," has "made a remarkable suggestion: Only the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Congress, needs to formally approve the agreement." Tough call indeed for the Iraqis: something -- quite a bit, actually -- for nothing.

Yet, as constitutional-fussbudget Ackerman further notes, Lute's "suggestion does not even pass the laugh test." While "American presidents do have unilateral authority to make foreign agreements on minor matters..., the Constitution requires congressional approval before the nation can commit itself to the sweeping political, economic and military relationship contemplated by the 'declaration of principles' signed by Bush and Maliki."

He goes on to remind us "there is no constitutional provision or precedent authorizing this new form of Bush unilateralism," and then flatly states that in the absence of "congressional consent, the constitutional separation of powers is at an end."

Some would say that is less a futuristic condition than a fait accompli. I'm not quite as pessimistic -- yet -- since Congress still has a year to grow some cojones. There's always hope, even if hope, at this late stage, is all we have. But Ackerman's observations did put me in mind of a recent television interview with journalist Michael Oreskes, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune and co-author of The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country, and Why It Can Again.

In the interview, Oreskes pointed out what should be commonplace knowledge, but has instead transmogrified into a rather profound observation these days.

When asked if the Founders would not be disheartened if not crestfallen over George Bush's executive power-grabs, Oreskes said, bluntly, "No." They wouldn't be surprised one bit. In fact, they would see them as the natural order of things -- they knew their ancient history of democratic failures, they had just defeated one power-happy "executive," and they understood that these peculiar creatures of executive office naturally wish to inflate their authority at every turn.

And that, dear friend, is exactly why they wrote the Constitution as they did. They anticipated -- and this is my characterization; not, heaven forbid, Mr. Oreskes' -- that representative democracy would, in time, produce morons and demagogues precisely of George W. Bush's disposition. Civic virtue and classical republicanism would not hold. Therefore they threw up barriers -- all manner of checks and balances -- to restrain the constitutional executive who, over time, would naturally yearn to corrupt his proper role and limitlessly expand his powers.

The trick, of course, is for Congress to push back. What George is doing was expected by the Founders. What they would find surprising, however -- what, in fact, would dishearten and leave the Founders crestfallen -- is that Congress has shown so little determination to exercise and reassert its own constitutional authority.

The Bush-Maliki declaration and its attendant implications merely present one more opportunity for Congress to do so. If it shirks its duty, again, then it's just one more, and perhaps final, step to one-person rule -- or, as Professor Ackerman warned without my hesitation of "perhaps," "the constitutional separation of powers" will be "at an end."

November 29, 2007

Wasn't that a lovely spectacle last night? If Republican presidential candidates get any nastier, they may start slapping restraining orders on each other.

The CNN-YouTube debate was a portrait in theatrical but ill-performed aggression and irrelevancy -- and the only thing that saved the party's most formidable candidate was that most of the questions were taped days or even weeks ago, thereby sparing him a grilling on the latest accusations of accounting fraud.

As The Politico reported yesterday, "As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

"The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants."

Whoops. All for the love of a (another) good woman, while the other little lady waited for hubby to come home from the Hamptons. Democratic pundit Bill Press yesterday described Rudy as "a ticking time bomb," and this report on what amounts to official malfeasance could be the final tick, assuming Rudy's opponents gang-slam him with the proper elan. But given their performances last night, I wouldn't count on it.

It was often as though the debate was their first crack at delivering well-rehearsed lines. Mike Huckabee -- who's now playing the religion card with elaborate unsubtlety; pasting 'Christian Leader' on his TV ads -- was, as usual, the most articulate, but his cornered emphasis on a reasonable immigration policy couldn't have helped him much among rabidly anti-immigration Republicans.

Just ask John McCain, who's one splendid moment last night came not on the dominant topic of immigration, but on the torture issue, as he slapped the clueless and bobbing Mitt Romney upside the head with, "How in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

John, need we remind you these are Republican primaries in play, in which inhumanity doubles as populist king.

Other than that, McCain seemed a bit off his game, occasionally stumbling in search of that flawless sound bite he's delivered a thousand times. What's absolutely beyond me, John, is how anyone could commit himself to a grueling two years of saying the same damn thing twelve times a day. But in so doing, I suppose you deserve a little credit and a little cut slack, for stamina, if nothing else.

Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter -- two political obscurities still squeezing their 15 minutes -- had no business even being on stage, although they ignored issues of actual importance to the American people, such as health care, just as handily as the more prominent candidates. Fred Thompson demonstrated he's still shooting for 'Fred Who?' status, bollixing a line on Giuliani's employment practices that he had days to perfect -- this guy was really a professional actor? -- and proving once again he's open to a presidential anointment, but not an election.

And, finally, there was poor Ron Paul, a befuddled constitutionalist among imperial stormtroopers, looking and sounding as out of place as any authentic libertarian would in this age of superpowered Republican arrogance.

If anything of value was gleaned from last night's debate, it was only that CNN's YouTube format stinks. Given the dated, prerecorded questions, the majority of seven had little to no opportunity to skewer and possibly eliminate the 800-pound-gorilla minority of one -- Rudy -- over his yet additional scandal.

On the other hand, as amateurish and lackluster as their sputtering aggressions were, the majority probably would have screwed that up, too.

November 28, 2007

For an administration that has postured as the daring, rootin-tootin global good guys of reality-altering action, this White House for seven years has stranded itself high atop a chair shrieking at that one mouse that roars: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The charitable view is that the neocons in charge weren't as stupid as they seem. They recognized real trouble when they saw it -- the intractability of a decades-long, regional problem that has reverberated throughout the world -- and decided to back off from the potential of any image-spoiling failure.

Better to treat the symptoms of Islamic distrust of the United States, and not its root causes, because those causes are, after all, so damned intractable. Better, and far more thrilling for public consumption, to go elsewhere with guns blasting. Better to forget the whole scene at the trouble's center, and simply hope for the best.

The less charitable view is that the neocons were, and remain, simply hopelessly adrift in their own conflicted positions.

Their boss envisioned a two-state solution; but only the final product of the solution -- two states. He possessed not a clue as to how to get there, and often made matters even worse.

For example the administration endorsed much of Israel's conflict-continuing stubbornness -- such as its blanket refusal of the Palestinian right of return -- making the honest brokerage of a deal as unbelievable as it is unworkable.

So now, with typical glitz and fanfare, the administration steps into the negotiating game at the eleventh hour, having done about as much damage as it could do.

For two terms it has issued nothing but high-minded pronouncements and printed unreadable road maps. Now, desperate for some legacy other than geopolitical chaos, it stages an Arab-Israeli summit -- which, just as typically, it says isn't a summit at all. Summits, you see, are expected to produce results.

But the only result expected is another dead end, hence the administration has made its greatest effort in preemptively lowering expectations. For this outfit, that isn't difficult.

For starters, Bush's aides "insist that [he] does not intend to negotiate personally the two-state peace he has pronounced as his vision." Well, I take it back. That's progress, right there.

Otherwise, aides have laid it out bluntly: "The president is not a gambler," said his press secretary; and "We have said from the very beginning, and the president made clear, that it is the parties themselves that have to make the peace," said the national security adviser among a chorus of expectation-lowering.

But it was Bush himself who put it most bluntly: "The United States cannot impose our vision," he said on the first day of the non-summit. And it was therefore Bush himself who, true to form, put it most incorrectly.

A two-state solution has always been possible, if only the United States would do what it refuses to do: impose.

Someday -- and this is as certain as today's continued volatility in Gaza -- Israel will either withdraw to, or be forced into, its 1967 borders. There is no other solution that promises a lasting peace. But it is likely a peace that will come only from an imposer: that being the United States.

We have always had the military- and economic-aid leverage needed to make it happen, not to mention the troops required within an international peacekeeping force, if only those troops weren't scattered throughout the Middle East hither and yon.

What the United States has always lacked, however, was the political will to make it happen. And Mr. Bush, for all his Superman blustering about global reordering, has lacked that will in even greater quantities than his predecessors.

So, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be merely one more problem left for his successor among a roiling vat of problems either wholly created or gutlessly exacerbated by the Bush administration.

November 27, 2007

It's Republican presidential candidates, for a change, who are waging internal warfare. They're suspending their country-club manners and putting aside those Reaganesque caveats on unified civility and going at each other like Democrats.

The spectacle isn't nearly as juicy as the old days of political mayhem -- the really good old days of America's first full century, when presidential hopefuls accused one another of monarchism, atheism, adultery, bigamy, and even murder. Those were the fanatical days of politics as the national sport -- the bloodier the better -- probably never to return. But we junkies will take what we can, and be thankful for it.

The principal problem for junkies outside the Republican circle, however, is that the meanest junkyard dog appears -- and I stress "appears" -- to be coming out on top. Love him or hate him, you have to admit Rudy Giuliani is molding himself into one helluva formidable national candidate, and it's only because he finds himself in his most profitable of natural habitats: that, simply, of junkyard doggism. It's what Rudy does best.

Plus, he's able to shift strategic gears without flinching or apologizing. For months his campaign downplayed the significance of winning, placing or showing in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, since Mitt Romney was thumping him in those states, anyway -- a kind of "You can't fire me, I quit" approach -- and Rudy seemingly possessed the subsequent, Super Tuesday firewalls of the East-coast states and Illinois.

But suddenly, it's a whole new ballgame.

Rudy is now tearing at Mitt's pant leg in both the early states, and he's admirably open about his reasons for the modified strategy: "It is not inconceivable that you could, if you won Florida, turn the whole thing around," he said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "I'd rather not do it that way. That would create ulcers for my entire staff and for me.... We want to win as many of the early ones as possible. That's why we're here and not in Florida right now."

Consequently, the only folks getting ulcers are Rudy's opponents.

Last weekend Giuliani was positively gleeful as he tore into Romney over a Willie Horton redux, and, to hardcore conservatives' delight, he's stomping the former governor for seeing to it that Massachusetts citizens were -- Heaven forbid -- provided health care, Hillary-style: "When you look back on Romney's governorship of Massachusetts, there's only one accomplishment, and he's running away from that." Which he is.

Rudy also had some fun with Fred Thompson, who is rumored to be in the race but spends inordinate amounts of time these days assailing, of all things, Fox News. "Asked about Thompson's criticism that he spends too much time talking about his record in New York, Giuliani laughed. 'I will not really respond to Fred, because it might discourage him from campaigning, and he's doing so little of it I don't want to discourage him.'"

There's no good comeback to a dig like that.

What's working most for Giuliani seems to be twofold: He has loosened up; he has started to enjoy himself on the campaign trail -- he's not the uptight attack dog he once was; he's now the smiling attack dog. And he's following Karl Rove's dictum of, "Never explain; explaining is losing."

He simply blows off criticism of his often deplorable record. Bernie Kerik as his right-hand man and a Homeland Security chief? Hey, mistakes happen. Problems with his 9/11 management? Hey, nobody's perfect. Those other mistakes in the past -- any of them? Hey, mistakes are part of experience, and he promises he'll make more in the future. So stuff it.

Meanwhile, compared to Rudy's casualness with fangs, his major opponents appear defensive, nervous and out of kilter -- except for Mike Huckabee, who already sees himself in the number-two catbird seat.

In short, if Rudy's friendly junkyard-dog routine prevails in the primaries, he'll likely play it to even greater effect in the general election, since appearing defensive, nervous and out of kilter seems to come alomst naturally to Democratic presidential candidates.

November 26, 2007

It was serendipitous timing that I happened to be reading Evan Thomas' marvelous biography of Robert Kennedy yesterday -- and was up to the early Kennedy administration period -- when I took a break to read more current goings on. Serendipitous, because given the twofold timelines it soon became hard to separate history from modernity.

The current material, from the Washington Post, was "U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War" -- reporting that quickly departed from noting "limited progress" and instead largely outlined a failing effort. Gloomy, to be kind, pretty much captured its essence:

"Intelligence analysts acknowledge the battlefield victories, but they highlight the Taliban's unchallenged expansion into new territory....

"While the military finds success in a virtually unbroken line of tactical achievements, intelligence officials worry about a looming strategic failure....

"While U.S. and other NATO forces have maintained a firm hold on major cities, they have been unable to retain territory in the vast rural areas where 75 percent of Afghanistan's population lives, several sources said. Ground hard-won in combat has been abandoned and reoccupied by Taliban forces."

The underlying problems run deep, from "lackluster counterinsurgency efforts by Pakistani forces" to -- even deeper -- "the absence ... of a strategic plan that melds the U.S. military effort with a comprehensive blueprint for development and governance throughout the country."

Almost needless to mention, these "contrasting views echo repeated internal disagreements over the Iraq war," as well.

So how did Robert Kennedy fit into all this?

Just after reading the Afghan war article I returned to the Kennedy biography, and thereupon started reading about the presidential brother's enthusiastic efforts in the innovative field of "counterinsurgency" -- a term, noted the author, reportedly coined by RFK.

His enthusiasm was ginned up by a 1961 Khrushchev speech, in which the Soviet premier predicted that communism would triumph not through conventional warfare -- the escalation to nuclear was too great a danger -- but through insurgent campaigns of national liberation and guerrilla activity.

In response to the speech, and at RFK's personal intervention and direction, "Almost overnight, a new and faddish weapon was added to the Cold War arsenal: counterinsurgency."

Special Forces were now to wage "people's wars" in winning the "hearts and minds" of the local populace being bullied and deceived by communist insurgents. The U.S. would triumph, thought RFK, through implementing "civilizing missions that ranged from land reform to child delivery."

On paper, it sounded like a boffo idea. But, wrote Thomas, "other government officials could see not only the limitations of trying to win the war of 'hearts and minds,' but also the dangers of trying."

For instance "one of RFK's pet ideas was to train the police forces of developing countries [Bernie Kerik-style, no doubt]." Said one State Department official: "He thought that by making their cops more like ours, we could stop communism."

But the official and his colleagues "knew, from firsthand observation, that the fragile democracies of Asia and Latin America had 'no control over their security services....' By making them more 'professional' [Sunni insurgents, anyone?], the well-meaning Americans risked simply making them more efficient engines of repression."

Observed Thomas, these counterinsurgency methods seemed, "certainly in theory, a better way to defeat communist movements in the Third World," from Vietnam to Cuba. "The actual experience, however, became a lesson to Robert Kennedy in the limits of power...."

RFK did indeed learn his lesson, and his following, all-too-brief years became a monument to spectacular character development and extraordinary intellectual growth.

Contrast his learning curve with what we have in the White House today, and the missing historical pieces explaining our failures in Afghanistan and Iraq fall into place.

November 25, 2007

The swindle continues, reports the New York Times. "With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has" -- don't tell me, let me guess -- "lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections."

Oh, shoot. Three-card monte is no fun when you spoil it like that.

The press could very nearly start reporting on the Iraq debacle with a journalistic transparency that exposes the honestly absurd, to wit: "Today, the Bush administration breathlessly announced another goalpost moved, another diplomatic sleight of hand, another p.r.-propaganda razzle-dazzle that transmutes yet another stunning failure into another smashing success."

Why not? Since the Bush administration is determined to debauch the American soul and corrupt every last strain of American decency with a gleeful intractability not seen since the German victory at Stalingrad, journalism might as well have a little fun, too. We're all in Bush's Orwellian sewer together, so we might as well concede defeat ... ah, impending victory.

Which is precisely, of course, what the administration is doing -- again. Its taking three, surefire and certain developments on Iraqi ground and reframing them as the daring-do of proven progress:

The short-term American targets include passage of a $48 billion Iraqi budget, something the Iraqis say they are on their way to doing anyway; renewing the United Nations mandate that authorizes an American presence in the country, which the Iraqis have done repeatedly before; and passing legislation to allow thousands of Baath Party members from Saddam Hussein’s era to rejoin the government..., largely symbolic since rehirings have been quietly taking place already.

Remember the absolute need for political "reconciliation" in Iraq -- the reconciliation that only a U.S. escalation would bring, guaranteed? Well, forget that. What Iraqis really need, says the administration now, is "accommodation," even though, oddly enough, Iraqi officials themselves insist, "We need a grand bargain among all the groups." No you don't. You're doing swimmingly well, since doing better is impossible.

And achieving the swimmingly good is so dazzling, especially when it's in the bag. The homespun swindle has even the Iraqis puzzled. The administration says with tortured angst it simply must assist them in passing a budget, to which a prime ministerial adviser said: "Every state needs a budget. It’s impossible to function without a budget. It does not need any push from anyone." One can almost see him swatting at Ryan Crocker, like a perfectly healthy grandmother who needs no assistance crossing the street.

Yet the much bigger puzzler is right here at home.

"The changing situation" in Iraq -- achieving the already achieved, that is, reports the NYT in a related piece -- "suggests for the first time that the politics of the war could shift in the general election next year, particularly if the gains continue. While the Democratic candidates are continuing to assail the war -- a popular position with many of the party’s primary voters -- they run the risk that Republicans will use those critiques to attack the party’s nominee in the election as defeatist and lacking faith in the American military."

Run the risk? Is there is one American soul alive who does not know with a certainty approaching a passed Iraqi budget that, no matter what happens there, "the party's nominee" here will be blistered by the GOP attack machine as "defeatist and lacking faith in the American military"?

And is there one American soul alive who doesn't know with equal certainty that the Democratic nominee will cower and equivocate in the face of that blistering fire; that the nominee will retreat from declaring with unOrwellian clarity that the noble admission of a failed and wrongheaded policy isn't synonymous with "defeatism" -- and that another year or two of this kind of success will leave no American military to have any faith in?

Yeah, that's what I thought. It's in the imperial genes -- every world power watches itself go over that cliff just up ahead, singing along the way with Orwellian self-assurance: "Things are much better than our sorryass reality would indicate."

November 24, 2007

For those who haven't noticed, the White House has been rolling out a new political strategy aimed at making itself "relevant" again.

In brief, it entails buttering up a disgruntled, disaffected public, so that it can rebuild some leverage over an alienated, apoplectic Congress, so it can then continue having its way on wasteful war spending.

That's the plan for the coming and final year -- a plan that is both humorous in its execution, and tragic in its necessity.

First the funny part. What the White House has devised is a "kitchen table" approach -- sounds homey, doesn't it? -- in which the president seizes on "new and more creative ways of engaging the public as his days in office dwindle and his clout with Congress lessens." And since the president and Congress aren't talking to each other these days, the former is simply back-dooring through executive orders what it laughably calls fresh, domestic "initiatives."

Why laughably? Because they're just more of the same old new and creative flimflam we've come to know and expect from this Orwellian outfit.

For instance last month Bush "traveled to the shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland to announce federal protection for two coveted species of game fish, the striped bass and the red drum." And "Just this weekend, thanks to an executive order by Mr. Bush, the military is opening up additional air space -- the White House calls it a 'Thanksgiving express lane' -- to lessen congestion in the skies."

Sure enough, targeted portions of the public thrilled to these executive innovations through executive order. But, sure enough, there was another side to them; one, ah, a little less ballyhooed: "Fishing for red drum and striped bass ... is already prohibited in federal waters; Mr. Bush's action will take effect only if the existing ban is lifted. And the Federal Aviation Administration can already open military airspace on its own, without presidential action."

For a change, however, the White House's overt Orwellian humbug is actually comforting. For as incompetent as this administration is, any muted subtleties on matters such as fishing rights and airspace would have only indicated that it simply wasn't aware of the preexisting legalities. Better to make a big splash and let us know it's on top of its usual game.

But the necessity behind the White House's new groove isn't nearly as laughable. Yes, Bill Clinton also shifted to "small ball" politics in his second term -- as Bush's strategists once doggedly denied they would ever do but now eagerly pursue -- yet the reasons for Clinton's doing so weren't to avert the public's eyes from the absolutely worst record in two-term presidential history -- bar none; hands down; indisputably, empirically, factually true.

When one surveys the wreckage wrought upon us in a mere seven years, the concentrated blow is staggering. Put aside the administration's failures, such as immigration reform and tax-code reinvention, and think only for a moment on its "successes."

At home -- the obliteration of a budget surplus; a deepening chasm between the rich and poor; an effective delay of health care reform; an educational initiative that doesn't educate; environmental protections ignored; a looming Baby Boomer crisis shoved aside; an economy heading into the tank; a Big Brother intimidation of the citizenry; and, in general, laws violated and flaunted with abandon.

Abroad -- a troubled Middle East exacerbated; no movement whatsoever on a Palestinian-Israeli accord; two wars, both failing, and another in the works; nuclear proliferation; a mind-numbing trade deficit; armed forces spent and depleted; alienated and angry allies; empowered foes; unapprehended enemies; and a world that, quite simply, hates us.

Did I overlook a few items? A dozen? A thousand? You betcha. When historians sit down to write narratives of this administration, they'll have two choices: short, pulp fictions about its masterful strokes, or honest, multivolume expositions of nitwitted reversals of fortune that no matter how many volumes are scribbled, they still won't do reality justice.

So, as the administration busies itself with redundant executive orders in preparation for the final onslaught, try to take some satisfaction that for a while, at least, it's relatively harmless.

November 23, 2007

Barack Obama should get down on his knees and thank God for Robert Novak, the unsubstantiated-rumor-spreading columnist who will write anything to claim a scoop. For, it seems to me, the Prince of Journalistic Darkness just helped save Obama's butt.

The timing of Novak's latest recklessness could not have been more ideal for Obama, or worse for Hillary Clinton. But to Obama's credit, it was his own exploitation of Novak's recklessness that was the real butt-saver.

Last week, at the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the Illinois senator went and committed the same clarity-mangling contortions on the complex issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants that the New York senator had just previously committed, to her considerable woe. Already trailing Clinton by a wide margin in Iowa, things suddenly looked even worse for Obama. The media were all abuzz about his public humiliation by CNN's Blitzkrieg Wolfman, and having to issue post-debate press releases full of defensive explanations is the most counterproductive use of a candidate's time.

That Thursday night, it looked bleak for Obama. Really bleak. So two mornings later I foolishly wrote a piece equally full of political prediction -- always a risky business of the first magnitude. Titled "Bye-Bye, Obama," it speculated "Whether ... out of naiveté or just plain intellectual stubbornness, the senator hurt himself badly, and perhaps even mortally." I then further self-impaled by saying Obama's misstep "screamed a campaign-ending, George Romney 'brainwashed' moment." In effect, I declared it all over for Barack.

But little did I know that that same morning Robert Novak would be just as reckless. In the New York Post -- a laughable rag I'm not in the habit of scanning before arching my fingers over this keyboard early each day -- Novak had inadvertently penned a reprieve for Obama in the form of unsubstantiated scuttlebutt.

"Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton," wrote the lugubrious Novak, "are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama."

That one line -- and don't you love it?; "agents," like some nefarious, anthropomorphic fog right out of "Casablanca" -- changed the topic and shifted the buzz within the media, and within a nanosecond. Drivers licenses? Illegal immigrants? Obama's humiliation? Poof. Gone. Now, suddenly, the talking heads and scandal-adoring scribblers had something else to chew on.

The dud of a bombshell saved Obama's butt -- and he played the distraction exceptionally.

The commentariat -- uniformly, from what I could tell -- was perplexed at Obama's personal engagement of the substance-lacking scandal. He should let surrogates and aides address it, they chided, and not lower himself into the cesspool of ignominious doings.

But, by putting his own face on the dust-up, the senator cranked it into a whirlwind. He knew exactly what he was doing -- no amateur, this Obama -- and he couldn't have done it better or to greater effect.

His personal intervention added fuel to the subject-changing news cycle, and what's more, his comments reinforced not only his own sagging message about Hillary as "a creature of a discredited Washington establishment" up to its old tricks, but fortuitously piggybacked on John Edwards' gloomy admonitions about our "corrupt political system," now spearheaded on the left, says Edwards, by you-know-who.

The upshot of all this? Barack Obama is now in a neck-and-neck contest with Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Consequently she's been cornered into a head-to-head strategy -- a prospect almost unimaginable before and especially immediately after the Las Vegas debate.

Obama's was one of the slickest tactical pivots I've ever witnessed -- and writing him off a week ago was one of the dumbest things I've ever done.

November 22, 2007

It was bad enough that the Washington Post buried the snipped McClellan revelations on page 15 (and that, by the way, was an Associated Press story, not a Post piece), but for the Times' news department to blow them off entirely is, for me at least, less aggravating than it is downright dumbfounding.

My only guess is that having originally made the decision to ignore the most significant development in the Plame affair since Scooter Libby's unconscionable commutation, the Times then decided to make it appear that theirs was a stand on journalistic principle: they are above the gossipy fray, a publisher's teasing, the unsubstantial musings of a quick-buck artist. In doing so, they then swiftly got caught up in one of Emerson's foolish consistencies.

That observation was confirmed this morning. I scanned the Times' online pages looking for some belated reference to the McClellan story. Nothing. So I migrated to the Times' internal search box, whereupon I typed "Scott McClellan," still thinking that some journalistic act likely had been committed by the Times, but was merely beyond my ken.

The results? Number 1) "Times Topics: Scott McClellan; News about Scott McClellan, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times," whose related links were topped not by news about Scott McClellan, but by a Mar. 7 piece on the Libby verdict. Number 2) A Sept. 1 story on Tony Snow's departure. And number 3, my favorite) An Apr. 26 "Arts, Briefly" piece in -- yep -- the Arts section, literally footnoting that "A memoir by Scott McClellan ... is to be published next spring by PublicAffairs, The Associated Press reported."

Gee, I wonder what ever became of that? Did anything of interest happen to happen between that announcement and the publishing date? I scurried to today's Arts section to check out the latest in political news, but alas, those arts reporters were covering only the arts, the pikers.

But let it not be said, as I indeed said in my opening, that the Times' editors entirely ignored the story. For this will be their defense: They let loose their blogger, Mike Nizza, on it, who noted Tuesday in "The Lede" that it is "intriguing" that "Mr. McClellan appears to hold President Bush partially responsible for statements to the White House press corps in 2003 that later proved to be inaccurate."

I like that. "Inaccurate" -- like little more than the miscalculation of a restaurant tip.

By the next day, however, after the McClellan story had blanketed other legitimate news operation's political coverage, The Lede was in full-blown damage control -- and I can only assume at the behest of embarrassed Times editors. Story? What story? They knew all along it was nothing but pestiferous hubbub, unworthy of their high-minded attention.

Or, as The Lede condescendingly put it: "After a day of wide coverage and swift reactions on the Web, the publisher, Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs, told MSNBC that Mr. McClellan 'did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him' about two senior aides’ roles in leaking the identity of Valeria Plame Wilson.... When we wrote about this yesterday, that was clearly one of the possible outcomes, although one that will disappoint opponents of the president who were hoping for him to be directly tied to one of the biggest scandals of his administration."

Blogger Nizza then concluded by quoting a right-wing blogger: "'Sorry, suckers,' Greg Sargent wrote at The Horse’s Mouth, 'It looks like McClellan will actually exonerate Bush for his role in Plamegate.'"

So let me get this clear in my muddled and amateurish head. The Times now depends on MSNBC to get hot-button stories straight -- certainly before venturing any reporting itself -- and on right-wing apologists to authoritatively assess their ultimate outcome -- and with that breadth and depth that only right-wing apologists do so well.

Got it. Bottom line: Put down the paper, turn on the tube. And for heaven's sake, let us certainly not venture into the story's vice-presidential implications, since the publisher pointedly omitted saying that McClellan did not intend to suggest that Dick Cheney lied to him. What's a little old news about possible White House obstruction of justice, after all? Yawn.

But here's an alternative bottom line: The Times blew it -- big time, to use the justice-obstructing vice president's favorite colloquialism. It then tried covering its butt, rather than the story, by relegating coverage to, and belittling others' coverage in, a blog.

May the journalistic gods help us should the House Judiciary Committee ever gin up impeachment proceedings. The Times, you see, already covered that sort of stuff back in '74, and it wouldn't want to just garishly pile on today.

Now forget all this crap and go have a marvelous Thanksgiving, right after you ...

November 21, 2007

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan remains the master of Orwellian obfuscation, only these days for fun and profit.

The Bushies -- who now include a long and growing list of former acolytes, such as McClellan -- as well those constitutionally charged with overseeing their misdeeds, can't even do scandal in a traditional way. You'll recall during the Nixon administration there was a thing called the smoking gun -- guns, actually. We had real investigative committees grilling thoroughly corrupt insiders and getting to the actual truth. The guns blasted and smoked almost daily. Mistakes were made, indeed, but we got to the criminal bottom of each and every one, and before the chief perp left office.

In a way, those were the days. As dark and squalid as they were, we nevertheless pulled ourselves out of the muck by exposing it to the clean light of day. And we did it by the book, which is to say, the U.S. Constitution.

Today? We see medals donned on the criminally incompetent. We witness internal promotions in repayment for the most despicable of on-the-job screw ups. We watch neocon nincompoops escape accountability and settle into cushy think-tank jobs. We get Congressional excuses and foot-dragging and table-offing.

And, we get memoirs -- those telling-all while saying-nothing memoirs, guaranteed to rake in the cash for the criminals, incompetents and nincompoops.

In April, we'll get Scott McClellan's: "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington."

Mr. McClellan probably does know much of what actually happened, but if you think he's about to tell us, think again. His publisher, PublicAffairs, will release 400 pages of little more than fog and shadows. That's what "Scottie" excels at generating; and that, of course, is the principal if not only reason he was Bush's spokesman. Clarity is the enemy of national betrayal.

His story on the Plame affair, no doubt, will stop where his publisher's teaser leaves off: "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so."

What the hell does that mean? Of course they "were involved" -- an inconsequential passive usage that fails to compete with even the just as inconsequential but at least more rhetorically ominous, "mistakes were made."

Note what he didn't write: "five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were directly and knowingly responsible for my doing so."

The latter may well be the case, but we won't read or hear it from Scottie. Indeed, he's already gone as far as he'll publicly go, without penalty of perjury. On the day Scooter Libby was convicted of just that, McClellan, who had long since left his White House podium, "made no suggestion" to CNN's Larry King "that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president 'believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.'"

What's more, "In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president." So don't count on anything more appearing in print, come April.

So when it does come to getting at the truth, what's missing? Think back to the Nixon days, and the missing piece looms large.

An aggressive Congress; one willing to take on a sitting president, to let the subpoenas fly and the investigators delve -- one willing to demand answers that travel beyond the obfuscating fog and arrive at the liberating truth. McClellan's "teaser" may in fact say little of authentic substance, but it does profoundly add to Congress' already plentiful cause for investigating obstruction of justice at the highest level.

I realize there are Democratic swing districts that might be endangered by an aggressive Congress, and that upholding the rule of law and enforcing constitutional imperatives pale in comparison to such electoral exigencies. But millions who retain some affection for the Constitution are beggin ya: Give it a go, anyway. You might be surprised at the public's reception -- a public that has had enough of this accountability-denying, national security-breaching, justice-obstructing administration.

November 20, 2007

As any watchful pessimist knows, every silver lining has a cloud. And the "good news" emerging from Iraq's internal rumblings is just such a case of "Brace yourself."

This morning the New York Times laid on thickly what's right with Baghdad these days -- probably to the right's everlasting chagrin, since, as it reminds us daily, the Times doesn't do such things. In a boffo tribute to snapshot reporting, veteran Iraq journalists Damien Cave and Alissa Rubin explain the hopeful here and now in "Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves," a headline whose positive mood pretty much blankets the story.

"The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real," says the Times, after noting, as one example, the "cooking by a sunlit window" performed by one repatriated wife and mother. "Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says."

For Americans at home, no matter how virulently anti-Iraq war they may be, the easing tensions and bloodshed in Baghdad are welcome news. Any respite from the daily slaughter that defined the city just a few months ago is a definite good, no matter how it was achieved, or who achieved it. No Iraq family deserves, and no American family delights in, the bloody mayhem and displacements ignited by a wrongheaded "liberation."

Yet -- and here come the clouds -- the good news is almost certainly temporary. And, extending the above point made on Americans' partisan differences, despite what right-wing pro-warrers might think, that doleful prospect is as depressing for the antiwar crowd as it is for them. Again, no one relishes the human fallout of a brutal civil war; but ethnic, sectarian and geopolitical realities on the ground in Iraq are still realities -- and they remain every bit as potentially brutal. The antiwar bloc just isn't as blind to them.

The Times only briefly suggested that optimism should be dispensed with a huge grain of caution. "Iraqis are clearly surprised and relieved to see commerce and movement finally increase, five months after an extra 30,000 American troops arrived in the country. But" -- and this is the huge part -- "the depth and sustainability of the changes remain open to question."

With that, the Times returned to the glowing reporting on the U.S. occupation's success. Maybe the paper is just tired of the bleakness and wanted its own respite. I don't know. But what wasn't reported looms far larger than what was.

The obstacles confronting a lastingly peaceful Baghdad are staggering in their dimensions, not to mention the surrounding country. They're also far too numerous to confine in the space of 900 words or so. Upon considering just a few, however, those silver linings begin to fade into the clouds.

For starters, the relative peace was U.S. imposed, and the required escalation is about to reverse. That's not a choice, unless one believes in the felicity of Hobson's choices. The troops simply aren't available. And as Shiite-dominated Iraqi troops and police forces take up the manpower slack, woe to those Sunni neighborhoods that have come to rely on impartial peacekeeping.

As well, Shiite militias could once again become an important player in Shiite protection, as increasingly disgruntled Sunnis retaliate against the revisited impartiality. More broadly, if anyone thinks 1400 years of sectarian divide and violence are slated to wither away after a few months of imposed peace, he's yet to read one history of the conflict, let alone a selection.

Then, of course, we have the separatist-terrorist situation in the north brewing and bubbling, which the Turks won't tolerate forever and will likely spark a regional war, thereby ripping apart the rather fine threads now holding Iraq together. And let's not forget the Bush administration's bete noir and magnificent obsession to the east, which is already pulling so many strings in Iraq, to local Sunnis' displeasure.

Back to Baghdad, the Times notes that only "about 20,000 Iraqis have gone back to their Baghdad homes, a fraction of ... the 1.4 million people in Baghdad who are still internally displaced." A broader local repatriation will only stir the cinders, making today's more peaceful metropolis a more likely battleground in the future.

In addition, one can't and shouldn't believe all the "good news" coming out of Iraq regarding the virtual elimination of the Sunni insurgency and its al-Qaeda pockets. We've been doused pretty thoroughly lately with this Pentagon flummery, but this morning comes a revealing passage in a Washington Post report: "U.S. military commanders say that insurgents across the country are increasingly motivated more by money than ideology and that a growing number of insurgent cells, struggling to pay recruits, are turning to gangster-style racketeering operations."

We can tak-tsk all we want about the tactics employed and motivations behind them, but those six little words -- a growing number of insurgent cells -- belie the happy and hopeful reports about the spent Sunni insurgency.

One could go on, of course, and almost without end. The dozens upon hundreds of factors working against any lasting peace in Baghdad and throughout are, as I said, staggering in their consequences. But for Americans, the only authentic good news will be that announcing the last troop to leave Iraq.

The "plan," as outlined by "planners," is to introduce $350 million of American military training and all manner of things that go boom into Pakistan's volatile periphery that is already heating up the volcanic interior. It's modeled on our Sunni-insurgency aid in Iraq's Anbar province, a ticking time bomb of an idea that will see all those U.S. weapons and all that U.S. training pointed right back at us, just as soon as the assisted locals clear out their unwanted hombres and then remember they're not that fond of the Great Satan, either.

But at least both fighting fronts will be less "asymmetric" by then, that undesirable state of military conflict in which the U.S. can't figure out how to whip an enemy armed only with the modern equivalent of sticks, stones and slingshots. The enemy will, instead, possess the latest in military know-how and toys, and therefore be more easily subdued. And if you follow that logic, there's a high-level planning job for you at the United States Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., where counterterrorism mavens devise such incomprehensible humbug.

Some Western military minds are a trifle skittish at the idea of arming those already "blamed ... for aiding and abetting Taliban insurgents mounting cross-border attacks" into Afghanistan, not to mention that "the assistance to develop a counterinsurgency force is too little, too late." What these minds fail to appreciate, however, is that the best quagmires -- the ones, that is, that offer mounting arguments for the mounting presence of permanent U.S. forces -- are indeed the ones initially created with assistance provided in quantities too little and timed too late.

Those are the dream quagmires -- the ever-escalating, stay-the-course swamps that keep the ravenous military-industrial complex and imperialist bumpkins content.

But I have to admit, yesterday's headline was a bit of a break. It wasn't so much about some incredibly stupid thing the Bush administration is doing; it was, rather, merely about how incredibly stupid the Bush administration has been. It was, to be somewhat more precise, one of those "This is news?" headlines, to wit: "Bush Failed to See Musharraf’s Faults, Critics Contend."

In brief, the story was a concentrated saga of the incredibly stupid spread over time, first noting that 2000 presidential candidate Bush "didn’t even know General Musharraf’s name; he couldn’t identify the leader of Pakistan." But from this deplorable lack of knowledge that failed to rise even to the level of shallowness, Mr. Bush quickly and lastingly determined that Musharraf was a "friend," a "courageous leader," a man of "vision."

The reality that the generalissimo was the one holding and pulling the strings, rather than the White House, seems to have never occurred to Mr. Bush, who, simply, counted on his crack intuition to make the geopolitical calls.

Now -- speaking of too little, too late -- "critics are asking whether the president misread his Pakistani counterpart."

"He didn’t ask the hard questions, and frankly, neither did the people working for him," said Pakistan expert and Bhutto-advisor Husain Haqqani. "They bought the P.R. image of Musharraf as the reasonable general. Bush bought the line -- hook, line and sinker."

Other "experts in United States-Pakistan relations said General Musharraf has played the union masterfully, by convincing Mr. Bush that he alone can keep Pakistan stable."

And, of course, we see that stability re-flowering today, as we prepare to shove hundreds of millions in military hardware into the hands of Pakistani tribal leaders who possess absolutely no love for the United States, nor share its preposterous vision of a more peaceful Middle East through greater firepower.

November 18, 2007

The editorialists at the Washington Post should try reading the Washington Post. I know this is asking a lot -- such a concession would risk tailspinning their merely disturbed cognitive dissonance into a wildly despondent mental unblockage -- but some radical measure of intervention is worth the gamble. They simply cannot go on like this, lest they soon find themselves writing for Fox News, a fate worse than journalistic obscurity.

This morning the WP's plucky opinion crew has written yet another logic-defying, reportage-denying editorial on Iraq. It opens orgiastically, and only the full measure of their come-hither ecstasy will do as a quote:

THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.

PRETTY THRILLING, huh? One can almost see the rockets' red glare, and the visage of George the Lionhearted is decidedly ineradicable.

But wait. A bummer is coming; their editorial erection is heading south. They're unable to cleanly wipe the day's problems from their minds and just lie back and enjoy the moment. It's frustrating, I know, but they smell trouble brewing in George and David's Middle East paradise -- dang it.

Or, as the editorial board put it with more than a trifle understatement: "It is, however, too early to celebrate," since, after all, "the principal objective of the surge was not military, but political." And, alas, that objective has met with unqualified failure.

Oh, shoot. And here we thought we were onto something -- a thought suggested by the very folks who then promptly suggested we forget all that. All their wooing and cooing meant nothing, since the cause of the troubles has been wholly unaltered by the surge's effect.

So what was their opening point? Just foreplay, I guess, which, of course, all real men -- even manly editorialists -- should properly disdain.

And their recommendation for recovery was just as disdainful, since it showed an utter lack of understanding of, say, Thomas Ricks' reporting in their own paper, which they acknowledge with only fleeting cognition.

"The White House and State Department seem to be turning their attention from Iraq at the very moment when they should be mounting a diplomatic offensive to secure concrete steps toward a political settlement," such as holding local elections, say the vastly worried editorialists. "Such negligence would be another fateful mistake in the conduct of this war."

If they had read above, below and between Ricks' lines -- or perhaps even the lines themselves -- they would have realized his reporting allowed for only the bleakest of prognoses.

Quoting Ricks: "The best promise for breaking the deadlock would be holding provincial elections, [U.S. military] officers said -- though they recognize that elections could turn bloody and turbulent, undercutting the fragile stability they now see developing in Iraq....

"So, how to force political change ... without destabilizing the country further? 'I pity the guy who has to reconcile that tension,' said Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, the chief of planning for U.S. military operations in Baghdad."

Hopeless is hopeless, especially when the only possible cure exacerbates the disease.

As for the WP's editorial board's sorrowful dysfunction? They should consult a professional. Like Ricks.

November 17, 2007

At Thursday night's Democratic debate, CNN's Wolf Blitzer deployed a kind of populist-media Big Lie, and Barack Obama, showing his inexperience, walked right into his trap. Whether it was out of naiveté or just plain intellectual stubbornness, the senator hurt himself badly, and perhaps even mortally.

The issue on which Obama tripped, as you know, was that of issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Until Hillary fudged in Philadelphia, it was, as The Politico noted, "a marginal issue that has been abandoned even by most immigrant-rights groups." It was also a wholly state-oriented question; one that didn't lend itself to presidential decision making or presidential prerogative. And it was, as Hillary rightly noted in the city of Brotherly Love, a nationally obscure but nevertheless highly charged "gotcha" matter.

Given the two-week-old history of this dubious question of now-looming national urgency, it was indeed shocking that Obama hadn't readied himself for its Las Vegas resurrection with a slick soundbite signifying nothing -- just to move on, like swatting at a fly. Any concise emptiness would have done the job; any brief mumbo-jumbo that circumvented any perilous sign of thoughtfulness.

As one seasoned campaign operative -- "long lost to every decency" -- once told then-political reporter H.L. Mencken, "In politics, man must learn to rise above principle." Maybe the chief principle to be conquered by the successful pol is that of addressing complexity -- recognizing it, and admitting its inherent difficulties in the public arena.

This, Obama initially refused to do. Instead, he launched into a scramble of explanation on the drivers license issue, balancing this side against that.

As I sat and watched him digging his hole on this matter that Democrats are now nearly as negatively excited over as Republicans, a singular thought flashed across my mind: Bye-bye, Obama. It screamed a campaign-ending, George Romney "brainwashed" moment; an Ed Muskie tearful moment; a Walter Mondale "I'll raise your taxes" moment. Here was blithering "authenticity" on display, which, without calculation, can be as lethal as even more authentic foot-tapping in a men's room.

"I am not proposing that that's what we do," said Obama, trying to elbow some reason into the topical mess -- as Hillary and NY's governor had so unfortunately done before -- and merely proposing that the issue wasn't, in fact, amenable to tidy, 100-percent answers.

But it was Wolf Blitzer's interruption that disturbed as well, and perhaps even more. Interrupting Obama, Blitzer lashed out: "This is the kind of question that is sort of available for a yes or no answer."

No, Wolf, it isn't.

Spiffy yes or no answers and pithy demagoguery may make your job easier -- after all, a clean yes or no can relieve you of following up, as you found yourself so relieved by Hillary's curt "no" -- and their dumbed-down quintessence may appeal to a much wider cable-TV audience. But complex issues such as immigration are unresolved precisely because they're ... well, complex. Ultimately, decisions must be made, of course, and actions taken. But to corner a candidate into an unthoughtful absolute, just for absoluteness' sake, contributes nothing to the debate. Indeed, it inhibits it.

In a healthy democracy, cable outlets such as CNN would encourage complexity of thought and nuance of positions, since we happen to live in a complex and nuanced world. Scoffing at anything less than a black-and-white, yes or no answer to these complexities contributes nothing but better ratings.

Your scoff was a cheap sell-out, Wolf. And you know it. You suppressed the questioning of others on the issue (there are, in fact, related issues of national security and transportation safety involved), and instead demanded debate-ending simplicity -- in a debate.

Shame on you, Wolf. And woe to Obama, should he ever again feel like giving an honest answer to a complex question.

November 16, 2007

Bush's war was such an ill-advised tangle of imperial nitwittedness, even a lull in the slaughter fails to encourage. When it's not one Hobson's choice among a raft of Catch 22s, it's another.

Remember when, according to the White House, it was al-Qaeda terrorists who posed the singular threat to peace, stability and the democratic good life in Iraq? Or, briefly, before that, the Sunni insurgents? And before that, the Shiite militias? Golly damn, if only we could purge Iraq of these sequential "bad guys," we'd soon see heaven on Earth, right there, in the original Garden of Eden.

But we, the good people of America, must first be patient, or so we were told. And patient we were, time and again, and again, and again. Because each step of the sordid way, we were told progress against the enemy du jour was being made.

Finally, with virtually the entirety of America's armed forces deployed in Iraq, we were told this is it: success, the final and indisputable victory we'd been waiting for -- all those successive bad guys were pretty much a thing of the past.

But whoops, hold on, there now seems to be a snag.

Having largely whacked the key and intransigent moles of terrorism, insurgencies and militias, "senior military commanders," reports Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, "now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias."

So we're back to the races, the one in which the entire, experimental and artificial and costly structure of Iraq wobbles on the edge of collapse. The promise of escalation appears in doubt -- but only to the faithless. The best advice? Be patient; be of good cheer. We'll whack this mole, too.

And who knows? We might. We've been whacking away for years, beheading one singular threat after another. The problem, of course, is that Iraq is the closest thing on Earth to a geopolitical Hydra. Whack one threat, and create two others. Whack two, and prepare for a sprawling regeneration of insufferable headaches.

From this, one would think other metaphors might occur to the powers that be, such as: When you're in a hole, stop digging. But one would be disappointed.

In Iraq, success breeds its own destruction. Hence even if we succeed in transforming Baghdad's Shiite leaders from gang to government, we'll one again succeed only in completing stage one of a two-staged failure.

It's as certain as Moktada al-Sadr's thirst for power. The deal we cut with Sunni insurgents to make the Sunni-insurgency and al-Qaeda-terrorism problems go away "makes the Shiite-led central government nervous, especially as the movement gets closer to Baghdad."

And there's not a hope in the hell that is Iraq that triumphant Shiite powers will tolerate Sunni power on an equal footing -- the very power creeping closer to Baghdad by the day.

What's more, updated concerns expressed by U.S. military officials as to what might happen merely betray what they know will happen: an "Army officer who requested anonymity said that if the Iraqi government doesn't reach out, then for former Sunni insurgents 'it's game on -- they're back to attacking again.'"

Indeed, one U.S.-friendly Sunni leader dispensed with the conditional: "As soon as we finish with al-Qaeda, we start with the Shiite extremists."

Then we're back to Square One -- only this time the starting gate will come with a preexisting price tag of trillions of dollars and 4,000 American lives.

But not to worry. The Bush administration has a plan.

Patience.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- the hardest-working little blog on the Internets -- and thank you!

November 15, 2007

If there's anything instructive in the latest data dump from the New York Times/CBS News polls, it's that the collective Democratic mind is now concentrated more on issues than electability, while the reverse holds true for its Republican counterpart. We're speaking in terms of the broadest possible interpretation here, which often admits the broadest possible flaw, but, at any rate, that's what the numbers seem to suggest.

If true, it's a surprising turnabout. Democrats are usually fixated on the electability question, while Republicans, secure in their moral superiority, coronate early and firmly. But after two terms of the Destructor Guy, the latter are now panicking -- and signaling that they're willing to sell off a piece of their supreme orthodoxy if that means holding onto the White House.

GOPers are saying one thing, while expressing a readiness to do another. According to the Times/CBS polls, "Large majorities of Republicans in New Hampshire and Iowa said they wanted the next president to be as conservative or more conservative than President Bush." Without getting into the modern-day definitional problems of conservatism, that, in itself, is a mind-bender, leaving one wondering how any candidate could be "more conservative" than Bush, sans the public display of an armband.

But the polls also found that "two-thirds of New Hampshire Republicans and one-half of Iowa Republicans said they were open to voting for candidates who did not share their view on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage." Simply put, electoral pragmatism is edging out ideology, at least for now through Nov. 2008. Anything to win -- and a lot of something will be required. They know it, and accept it.

Since roughly the post-McGovern era, however, this has been the defining characteristic of the Democratic mind, given the party's recurrent difficulties in seizing the White House. But change may be in the air. The polls are suggestive: "By contrast, 50 percent of New Hampshire Democrats said they would not be prepared to vote for a candidate who wanted to keep troops in Iraq 'longer than you would like,' even if they thought the Democrat had a good chance of victory in November."

The conclusion to be drawn, albeit gingerly: This time around, issues are somewhat more important to Democrats than electability. In short, we may be seeing the ascendancy of a progressive ideology over electoral pragmatism (which, to thoughtful progressives, is roughly one in the same). It's about time.

As well, there's some rather good evidence that this change in attitude extends beyond the Iraq war. And the change proceeds -- logically, I think -- from the disastrous domestic course laid by Bush throughout two agonizing terms.

Democrats, independents and even that peculiar slice of sensible Republicans are beginning to wonder if, perhaps, something can't be done for Americans at home. While virtually the entire presidency of George W. Bush has fixated on rehabilitating the world, America itself has been sinking. And we're feeling the sting.

To wit: "Many of the elements of bad economic times are coalescing -- rising gas prices, a devalued housing market and stagnating wages. Depending on the depth of the economic downturn..., financial worries could eclipse the war in Iraq as the driving issue in the presidential campaign."

What's more, "a CBS News poll taken in October found that health care is of equal concern to voters as is the war in Iraq. In the poll, taken in mid-October, respondents were asked what they’d like to hear the candidates for president discuss more of during the 2008 campaign. While 26 percent said the war in Iraq, 25 percent said health care."

Financial worries, the related lack of guaranteed health care, jobs and income stagnation, awareness of educational woes, etc., etc. -- all are commingling in the American mind to create the profoundly depressed sense that we're getting screwed, and someone had better start doing something about it.

Which swings us back to the original point regarding Democrats' weighing of issues vs. electability. And at the risk of beating a dead horse, since I raised this issue only last Monday, in the earliest showdown the Big Three candidates are, I think, blowing it.

"The Democratic contest is essentially tied in Iowa, among Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards..., according to The Times/CBS News Polls. None of the Democrats has a statistically significant lead in Iowa: Mrs. Clinton has the support of 25 percent of respondents, Mr. Edwards 23 percent and Mr. Obama 22 percent."

How could one break out of the small pack? Simple, or as close to simple as it gets in politics: Cut the internecine needling.

Iowans have heard it plenty, and could recite the jibes as readily as the candidates themselves. What they're eager for now are tangible solutions to our swelling mound of tangible problems. And whoever first emphasizes progressive answers over now-tedious attacks will seize a potentially powerful edge.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- the hardest-working little blog on the Internets -- and thank you!

November 14, 2007

Wouldn't you know it? That if George had to befriend a dictator as his closest ally, he'd choose just about the goofiest s.o.b. on the planet?

If you haven't read Gen. Pervez Musharraf's interview with the New York Times, you should. If you're like me, the result will be a peculiar combination of shock and amusement: shock, that any pretender to a democracy under American auspices would belittle democratic customs with such nonchalance; amusement, that any pretender to a democracy under American auspices would belittle democratic customs with such nonchalance.

It was quite a performance, this interview was. Like his best friend George, besieged and beset by towering countervailing logic at every turn, Pervez didn't shoot for even a patina of intellectual legitimacy. He simply stared down his inquisitor and offered up the lamest of rationalizations.

After all, what does he care? He's in the twenty-first century's catbird seat -- that slickest of internal contradictions: immovable authoritarianism in the service of fluid democracy.

Pervez has learned all the right lingo, and from the master himself. Having "vigorously defended his declaration of emergency rule..., insisting that it would not interfere with the holding of free and fair elections" -- pity the sloppy thinker who imagines such a thing might -- he then defended his suppression of civil liberties because of Pakistan's "disturbed terrorist environment."

How terrorizing his own people, trashing the Constitution, removing the Supreme Court and arresting thousands of conscientious professionals is conducive to calming that environment is anybody's guess. But Pervez knows that a solid determination to stay the course is the wisest policy. When will de facto martial law end? "We need to see the environment," he said.

Besides, a textbook democratic environment can be disturbing as well, not to mention that it strains the fragile emotions of the dictatorially sensitive. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, you see, is "confrontationist" and therefore difficult to get along with, said the delicate general. "I am afraid this is producing negative vibes," he continued, presumably just before heading to his VW minibus and flashing the peace sign.

When asked about Condoleezza Rice's sorta-kinda plea that he return to the rule of law, he said, "I totally disagree with her. The emergency is to ensure elections go in an undisturbed manner," which, it seems, can somehow take place notwithstanding the "disturbed terrorist environment." Go figure.

But Pervez "totally disagrees" with Condi, because he can. In fact, Condi wants him to. The playful cat-and-mouse game that he and she are indulging came into focus yesterday when "the United States Embassy confirmed ... that the envoy it was sending to press General Musharraf to end emergency rule was Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte."

And lo and behold, it happened to be Mr. Negroponte that the State Department sent to Congress last week to testify "that the general was 'indispensable' as an ally in the fight against terror." That's going to be some pressing, 'eh John?

Meanwhile, back at home, in the land of genuine democratic rule and popular consent, George "vetoed a bill that would have provided $150.7 billion for education, health care, job training and other domestic programs.... At the same time, just before leaving the White House, Mr. Bush signed the Defense Department appropriations bill, which provides $459 billion for military programs."

But it was all so confrontational, so unnecessary, so untidy, this doing-the-right-thing thing. If only our elected representatives didn't insist on emitting negative vibes -- peddling education, health care and job training in such a disturbed terrorist environment. If only democracy could be preserved by righteously unfettered authoritarianism, just as some of George's playmates get to have. Geez, they get all the fun.

But, now, now, George, if all your friends wanted to jump off a bridge ...

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- the hardest-working little blog on the Internets -- and thank you!

November 13, 2007

Try as I might, I can't get the Schumer-Feinstein perfidy out of my head, its acrid taste out of my mouth, or its sickening reality out of the pit of my stomach.

I do try. Obsession is unhealthy, or so they say. Move on, they say. But then I read another reference to the senators' in-house treachery -- which, given the rapidity of modern news cycles, should already seem like ancient history -- and its gross profundity demands reentry.

The latest culprit to inflict such an ignominious reminder was Frank Rich, in his latest column. And he did so, as always, brilliantly. Using the "Pakistan mess" of crushed liberties as a framing backdrop, he noted that contemporaneously "our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle." He needed to isolate only two of its members: "Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’s two most highly populated blue states," who "gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey."

He then framed that sorriest of developments with penetrating accuracy: "In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite. That’s why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug."

Yet I did differ with Rich on one of his observations. Perhaps it's only a matter of chosen emphasis, but if so, I most emphatically see "the defining down" of our democracy in a different, defining light -- in a kind of blinding, Big Bang emission, which I'll explain shortly.

Rich continued: "To believe that this corruption will simply evaporate when the Bush presidency is done is to underestimate the permanent erosion inflicted over the past six years. What was once shocking and unacceptable in America has now been internalized as the new normal."

He then noted this, and this is where my difference erupts: "This" -- the permanent erosion, the shocking and unacceptable -- "is most apparent in the Republican presidential race, where most of the candidates seem to be running for dictator and make no apologies for it."

Republican candidates running for dictator? A mere and recurrent subtext, it seems to me. What is a GOP presidential campaign these days without promises of limitless militarism and enabling acts? The fulfillment of those democratic death wishes lies at the core of the GOP's base, so it's what the party enthusiastically dangles.

But Rich, ever so subtly, flipped the subtext.

"What makes the Democrats’ Mukasey cave-in so depressing," he wrote, "is that it shows how far even exemplary sticklers for the law like Senators Feinstein and Schumer have lowered democracy’s bar. When they argued that Mr. Mukasey should be confirmed because he’s not as horrifying as Mr. Gonzales or as the acting attorney general who might get the job otherwise, they sounded whipped. After all these years of Bush-Cheney torture, they’ll say things they know are false just to move on."

That, to me -- that, the liberal Schumer-Feinstein betrayal -- was the defining and most apparent moment in our democracy's permanent degradation, if permanent it be.

Historians always have a difficult time putting their fingers on such moments. When, precisely, did certain 20th-century Western democracies put their civilized roots to the stake? It's impossible to nail "it" down.

But, it further seems to me, future historians will have no such problem when it comes to identifying the decisive and explosive end to America's 21st-century democratic experience. The end came in two separate and vocal nanoseconds -- in a blistering flash of unprincipled sell-out, of frustrated surrender, of cowardly submission.

Schumer and Feinstein's insincere yea votes of confidence in a man who openly professed hostility to any democratic institution that might dare check what is now an utterly unchecked executive were but their own declarations of dispirited resignation. But they took us down, too.

Rich concluded that we're now a nation in a state of "clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon."

We can't see a restoration because we're groping in the dark -- and for my money, if you want some clarity in this mess, just reflect that the ones who turned the last lights out with glaring conspicuousness were Schumer and Feinstein, and not the usual suspects within the GOP.

Theirs was a historic perfidy. And if it holds any salvation at all, I suppose it's that it does indeed profoundly haunt so many of us.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- the hardest-working underdog blog on the Internets -- and thank you!

November 12, 2007

Are the Democratic presidential primaries still about the vision thing, even if just a little? Or, having rolled out ever so briefly a proposed solution or two to what now amount to hemorrhaging crises both at home and abroad, have the candidates chucked the issues for good?

Saturday night they gathered in Des Moines to address a swarm of Democrats at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. This would seem a prime opportunity for each major candidate to tell the crowd -- and through extensive media coverage, the nation -- why his or her remedies are better than the other guys'. Or so one might think.

But let's take a look, from The Politico's coverage of the event, at the tangle of nothing but political attitude and practical insignificance that manifested instead. I don't blame the journalism here in availing us nothing, for there wasn't anything to avail but low-soaring rhetoric, elbowing jibes, canned one-upmanship and staged sincerity.

The want of anything resembling an actual idea was striking. To wit ...

"Neither Obama nor former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) criticized Clinton by name, but both offered indictments of her judgment and capacity to bring change....

"The senator from New York, for her part, sought to turn the party's focus away from her and onto the White House and the Republican Party....

"Both Clinton and Edwards have suggested at times that Obama lacks the desire or capacity to fight, and he has tried to address that criticism by sharpening his attacks on President George W. Bush....

"But Obama also seemed to criticize Clintonism as a mirror image of divisive Republican tactics, with a cynical focus on winning at any cost....

"And [Obama] appeared to described his main rival as a figure without clear principles....

"Obama also appeared to reference the Clinton Administration when he denounced leading by polls....

And, my personal favorite, a two-fer:

"Obama's criticism of the Clinton 1990s echoed the criticism ... that Edwards has voiced for months...."

Finally:

"Speaking before Obama, and after Edwards, Clinton tried to answer her critics:

'There are some who will say they don't know where I stand ... I stand where I have stood for 35 years -- I stand with you and with your children and with every American who needs a fighter in their corner for a better life.'"

That was the only direct line from a candidate I retained from the news coverage, but, believe me, you missed nothing in my omissions. There wasn't anything of substance to miss. And the only reason I retained Hillary's quote was to ask: Did you derive any understanding whatsoever of where she stands -- on anything -- from that?

I'm well aware that events such as Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners are more rally than seminar. But, it seems to me, a trifle substance here and there would go farther in swaying undecided voters and caucus goers than this now-incessant round robin of personal carping. Its unremitting quality has gotten just plain silly.

Yes, yes, yes, we all get it -- each of you possesses a "judgment," "capacity to bring change" and a "desire to fight" like we haven't seen since Abraham Lincoln or FDR, and the other guy doesn't (which, of course, leaves them all undifferentiated). We get that, and that's the expected and necessary stuff of politics. But what, specifically, do you plan to change, and how?

A hundred million voters aren't going to access your Web sites and search for answers, assuming they might find one or two. But they might be inspired by a few specifics offered on the stump -- you know, like at events that receive national coverage.

We appreciate that your opponents have no credible ideas or desirable depth on issues that matter. What are yours?

Just a thought.

****

... to support p m carpenter's commentary -- the hardest-working little blog on the Internets -- and thank you!

November 11, 2007

I don't use the word "fascinating" very often to describe political movements, but that's just what the Ron Paul phenomenon is. It's fascinating because it's a strange sort of outlier, a borderline freak show, an insurrectionary abnormality within the normally staid and stuffy Republican Party.

Paul has ignited a dedicated and mushrooming base largely, as we know, because of the Iraq war. He alone among the Republican warhawk club of presidential candidates called a spade a spade early on -- that the war was an anticonstitutional betrayal of America's interests -- and thereby stood out from the snarling pack. In doing so, he also put to shame the Democratic candidates, excepting Dennis Kucinich, who have done little but waver and waffle on the war's status quo. Hence Paul has been able to draw visceral antiwar support from both sides of the blurred ideological divide.

When both parties get themselves mired in such an intolerable state of affairs, Ron Pauls happen. It's as simple and predictable as that, but no less fascinating. Because they usually take on a common-man, log-cabin, "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" kind of grassroots enthusiasm that's like a behemoth without a head. Support sprawls, and indignation and frustration rule, but usually in only one identifiable cause and direction; in this case, the Iraq war and demands for its end.

But if Paul's supporters, who are growing in numbers and financial contributions literally by the minute, were to scratch the surface of Paul's vocal frustration on their behalf, I doubt they'd like what they find. For, beyond the Iraq war issue, what Paul represents is a neo-New Rightest movement within an already reactionary political party. He takes the Republican clock -- already cranked back to the Gilded Age -- and turns it further back to the virtually non-governmental age of the early 19th century.

Paul is nothing new. He's just Barry Goldwater without the gunpowder.

For this Texas congressman, who has drawn a handsome government check for 20 years, simplicity reigns, just as it did for the Arizona senator. Government is bad, government can never be helpful, we were never so well off as we were in 1787.

The internal complexities of that era that led to, say, our bloodiest war, severe and repeated economic depressions and an unsustainable two-tiered class structure are easily overlooked, if only one would restrict oneself to a McGuffey's Reader view of American history and political philosophy.

This, Paul has done. For him, complexities begone -- and that's a seductive proposition for millions who are sick of, and confused by, the turmoil of modern, post-industrialized life. It's so simple, and comforting, to identify one enemy -- the government -- and envision a happy, carefree life with its perceived intrusions erased.

Take a look at Paul's Web site, and you'll soon see what I mean. It's chocked full of the most curious phenomena -- what you might call black-and-white ambiguities, all promising a simpler, and thereby happier, future.

Take, for instance, taxes. Paul likes lower ones, and who doesn't? How low, we can't say, because he doesn't. But he does say things like this: "Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by $40 a month or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains taxes and hire more employees, that tax cut is a good thing."

Well, for that single mother it might be for a while, until she realizes her and her children's health care is now kaput, her daycare subsidies are forever gone, her kids' school will continue to crumble, the federal highway she travels to work on is unattended, the air she breathes and the water she drinks are worsening in quality, her state and local taxes are now $400 a month in a failing attempt to compensate -- and her employer is now cashing all his goodies in with no capital gains to pay.

You want 1787? Or 1887? You can have it, but you won't want it for long. I can guarantee that, because neither did the folks who lived in 1787 and 1887.

There's no doubt Paul's antiwar, anti-imperialism message is a powerfully sensible one. Go beyond it, though -- turn down the siren song of simplicity, and turn up the muted lessons of history -- and your Paulite enthusiasm, if so possessed, is sure to drift away.